What 34 hotel owners and managers said they wanted, when asked directly

Who came forward

Seventy-nine percent were owners or general managers, with the remainder split across marketing, commercial and operations. There were no committees and no procurement gatekeepers: the person who signs is the person who asked. Fifty-nine percent ran properties under fifty rooms; a fifth ran between fifty and a hundred and fifty; the remainder were larger or multi-property, including two chain-affiliated properties whose staff came through the same route.

By type: 41 percent independent hotels, 24 percent boutique properties, 21 percent serviced apartments, 9 percent resorts and 6 percent groups. The serviced-apartment share was the surprise, and on reflection it should not have been. It is the segment with no brand support, full marketplace exposure and the least sector-specific advice available to it.

What they said hurts

Sixty-five percent described their channel mix as mostly marketplaces. Of those, all but one also named direct-versus-marketplace dependency as something they wanted to fix: a 95 percent confirmation rate between the problem we assumed and the problem they named unprompted.

The ranked list of what they wanted to grow put AI visibility first at 91 percent, search and local presence second at 82 percent, and marketplace dependency third at 79 percent. Below that came a band of conversion infrastructure — booking flow at 59 percent, mobile experience 56, analytics 53, reputation 50 — and then the things owners defer until someone shows them the revenue link: paid readiness 44 percent, guest data capture 44, site speed 38.

One caveat we would rather state than bury: 29 percent of respondents ticked every box available, which inflates every percentage. Among respondents who chose three or fewer, the same three lead. The ranking holds; the absolute numbers should be read as enthusiasm rather than as priority.

What the geography says

The United Kingdom accounted for 24 percent, South-East Asia and the Nordics 18 percent each, the Gulf 15 percent and Indian Ocean islands 9 percent, with the rest scattered. That spread is worth noting for a practical reason: any hospitality supplier working office hours in one timezone is unavailable to half of the properties that want to talk.

What we changed because of it

Two things, and both are visible on this site. First, the scan now leads with what the engines say about the property, because that is the question owners ask first even though it is not the largest commercial problem they have. Second, we ask for a phone or messaging contact as well as an email, because in a Gulf and Asia-heavy base, email alone is a slow way to reach an owner who is running a property twenty-four hours a day.

Method

Thirty-four qualified respondents from 46 raw submissions between 25 July and 11 August 2026, gathered through paid social advertising aimed at hospitality decision-makers. Self-reported, self-selected, and small. We are publishing it because first-party evidence with its limits stated is more useful than a vendor benchmark with its method hidden, and we will publish it again when the base is larger.